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Severe storms rip across Middle Tennessee

Severe storms, including at least six confirmed tornadoes in four counties, raked Middle Tennessee Wednesday morning, leaving one man dead and some devastating property damage but few reported injuries.

Maury County escaped the worst of the devastation, although part of the roof was blown off a building at Columbia State Community College and a glass door was shattered at Maury Regional Medical Center.

Wind damage was reported to the National Weather Service as early as 1:21 a.m., with a tree down in Lawrence County. A few minutes later, trees were reported down to the north across Stewart County. Reports of power outages and some property damage came into the NWS from several locations as the storms grew fiercer in a line moving east over Middle Tennessee.

Tornado watches and warnings were issued through the night in many Middle Tennessee counties.

The heaviest damage was reported between 2:27 a.m. and 2:35 a.m. in Centerville and the neighboring Coble community in Hickman County, where at least 15 houses were damaged or destroyed. County officials worked at wreckage scenes throughout the day.

In Maury County, Columbia State’s Health Sciences building, which houses the veterinary technology and radiology programs, sustained “significant roof damage,” said Amy Green, marketing director for the school. Inside, one of at least two rooms that were affected was recently outfitted with new X-ray equipment.

“We’ll have to see what damage assessment for that is, or whether it will be replaced with insurance,” Green said. “A reclamation team has been deployed to formally assess damage and deal with insurance. But it won’t impact the teaching program at all.”

Some faculty members were relocated to other classrooms but the college maintained its usual schedule for students, Green said.

At Maury Regional Medical Center in Columbia, a glass emergency room door was blown off its tracks and shattered on concrete parking barricades outside, but there was no additional damage, according to Marketing Director Rita Williams.

“Fortunately our staff had moved all patients into an interior hallway for safety, and no one was there by the door when it happened,” she said.

Trees were toppled throughout Maury County, a sheriff’s dispatcher said, including “quite a few in the Mt. Pleasant area, especially around South Cross Bridges Road.” But no storm-related injuries were reported, the dispatcher added.

About 2,000 customers of Columbia Power & Water Systems lost electricity service because of downed power lines, General Manager Wes Kelley said, though only about 500 suffered an outage of longer than two hours.

“We started getting our first calls around 1:30 a.m., and we had crews working on it throughout the duration,” he said.

Most of the outages occurred in the area of Hampshire Pike and Zion Road and in the Riverside neighborhood in north Columbia, he said. About 300 customers living in the Chantay Acres subdivision off Nashville Highway had power restored after four hours.

Duck River Electric Membership Corp. District Manager Michael Trew said about 100 customers in the Hampshire and Spring Hill areas lost power in the area served by his cooperative in Maury and Giles County.

Winds destroyed an abandoned two-story building about two blocks from the town square in Lawrenceburg, where Police Chief Judy Moore said bricks and debris were spread across Depot Street. The street was closed to pedestrian and motor traffic while crews worked to clear it, she said, adding that no other significant damage was reported in the area.

The only reported fatality was near Nashville, where police said Vernon Hartsell, 47, died when a large tree was blown over about 3:30 a.m. onto a shed where he had taken cover in the Bordeaux area, north of downtown.

As local communities confronted their storm damage, the NWS sent assessment teams to determine whether there had been tornado touchdowns in Western and Middle Tennessee.

By about 3 p.m., they confirmed that a tornado, with winds of 115 mph, touched down in Mt. Juliet about 3:25 a.m. In a path up to 150 yards wide, it traveled 4.6 miles from Glenwood Drive through the city until it lifted near Cooks Church Road, the NWS said. No fatalities or injuries were reported.

But the assessment teams found heavy damage to a warehouse and automotive business in the city’s commercial district and minor or moderate structural damage to several other businesses. The NWS also reported significant damage to outbuildings, fences and power poles at the city’s ballpark. Dozens of trees were toppled and power lines downed, and many homes suffered minor damage along the tornado’s path.

The top floor of a three-story building was also reported in Mount Juliet and a man and his son who live there escaped injury by diving underneath a mattress. A tractor-trailer truck parked behind a restaurant was flipped onto its side. The driver wasn’t hurt.

By late afternoon Wednesday, he weather service confirmed six other tornadoes had hit Middle Tennessee in Wilson, Sumner, Hickman and Cheatham counties.

The storms were set off when warm, moist air was overrun by a cold front, which did not produce much lightning.

Temperatures were falling behind the storm front. Early Wednesday temperatures had been as high as a record 71 degrees in Nashville, but fell to 55 degrees by 6:30 a.m. It was also 55 in Memphis, but ahead of the front, Knoxville reported 69 degrees and Chattanooga had 67 degrees.

Continued cooling was forecast, with temperatures below freezing expected by Wednesday night.

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